Weekday News Wrap: June 28, 2012

by An Hertogen

For lack of evidence, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has been acquitted of one of two counts of genocide he faces at the ICTY at this mid-point in his trial. He faces 10 other charges, including the other genocide charge affiliated with the Srebrenica massacre, wherein 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed (ICTY press release here).

The EU, US and Japan have requested the establishment of a dispute panel over China’s limits on rare earths exports. Interestingly in light of Julian’s earlier post, ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea could break China’s dominance by creating certainty for investments in seabed mining for rare earths.

There have been violent clashes in Mali between the Tuareg rebels and the Islamist rebels that helped it to take control of a large section of Northern Mali in April.

Religious and ethnic violence also in Northern Nigeria following raids, presumably by Boko Haram, on police posts and a prison.

A New Zealand High Court has held that the search and seizure at the Auckland mansion of Megaupload’s founder Kim Dotcom, who has achieved folk hero status in New Zealand, was illegal. The search was part of the US investigation into copyright violations by Megaupload’s file-sharing service.

The Gabon government has burned five tons of ivory to send a strong signal in the fight against poaching and illegal trafficking.

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